Small GalCiv II updates?

Small GalCiv II updates?

Galactic Civilizations II still sells amazingly well. Both at retail and digitally.

As a token of thanks, I was thinking of working on an update in my spare time after I turn in the book manuscript next month. Are there any small updates you guys would like to see in there? Mind you, it would be just be me. On a couple of cold weekends doing this.

I don't know the meaning of small but I am sure people will ask you anyway?

1) Hardpoints: The Warp Drive I center hard point is off centered | v | change to | v |

2) New ship shapes.

3) Ship Designizer with a slide bar that changes the size of the ship. Tiny is 16 but with a slide bar you can change it to any size like 34 size, you can add more items on it.

4) When scrolling through your ships when building in a Metaverse Game, it always goes back up to the top when you leave or do something then you have got to scroll back down to where you were. so there any way for it to stay where you left off.

5) Fix the bug in the Planet Governor so it dosen't fill up the planet with farms. I told it to make one farm but insteads it fills all 400 palnets with farms (I don't need 15 farms on my PQ 20 planet) and then game goes bad.

6) Too bad you couldn't use the Planet Manager screen to use Planet Governor on, like when you buy ships or building. It would save a few a clicks on the mouse.

7) On the Planet Manager screen, it would be nice to see what bonues you have on a planet instead going to the planet.

Are you talking about GalCiv2 - the original Dread Lords? Or only about one or two of the expansions?

Because, really, DL has not seen a decent update in quite some time. It is still back at 1.5something.

How about a token of thanks to all of us that bought the original but don't have the expansions (for whatever reason, be it don't want or can't afford)? We, after all, sent this snowball rolling down the hill for you.

I would like to see some of the AI improvements, trading improvements, newer graphics... etc., to the ORIGINAL DL game!

It'd be cool if the AI would make researching and deploying Counter Espionage Centres a priority if they have lots of spy infestation. Obviously, that doesn't get rid of any spies which are already there, but it prevents any new spies from coming to take their place once they're nullified. Which means that espionage doesn't become an ever-spiraling spending war.

Allowing constructors to build more than one module..its a drag building lots of constructors to beef up critical starbases.

also tweak the AI personalities in ToA of evil races..they dont expand beyond SOI..i had to change personality traits to human to compensate(the last one is not a major issue though after doing this, just thought i'd mention it)

allow planets the option to construct orbital defence platforms.

some kind of treaty agreement that dosent allow other races to construct starbases near your planets or warships to pass through the SOI of other races without a millitary assistance pact or sometihng..just thinking out loud here..but great game..looking forward to galciv3 if and when it happens.

starbases with limited population that can be culturally conquered, new types of colonies : research colony and prison colony that can be created on this uninhabitable planets(0 class planets) tahat add to production(prison colony) and research(research colony), artificial planets with limited polulation- built with constructors like terror star

- Giving constructors a command that makes them find and go to the closest starbase they can put a component on, so I don't have to scroll all across the map to find the ones that got new slots after a particular tech was researched. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if they can't do this already, but at least I didn't see it the last time I played...

- A buy building (and maybe ship) button on the colony list screen, so that you save a click and some mouse movement when you want to buy a building. It adds up when you've got a lot of new colonies you want to buy some of the cheaper buildings for. It's only 1 click less per colony (plus some movement of the mouse) but it adds up fast. I was playing Master of Orion 2 the other day and noticed that the buy button you have on the colony list there would be awesome to have in GC2.

Not only does it save you a click per planet, but currently you can't see the difference between a planet you've already hurried the production on that turn and one you haven't, which means that as you progress down the list you tend to forget how far you'd gotten and you click around to find the next planet you can rush production on. A button like in MoO 2 would solve that issue as well (just grey it out or something if you can't rush production that turn).

Not sure how feasible either of those are, but they are the two things that I distinctly recall missing when I played my last GC2 game about 2 weeks ago.

I would like to see Planetary Defense buildings and abilities actually do something - as best I can tell, their effects aren't working. Putting planetary defense structures on my planets feels cool... until I get attacked and shouting at the screen "Didn't you even count those structures and bonuses?!?"

How about improving the Forum like with new medals and fix the old medals too like custom race medal because I never did get it.

I have to say there are some good ideals about the AI. I think you work on the AI. The minor races, what do they do besides being milk and slaughtered. Maybe the AI can give you more money or techs for doing a mission???

I second the point on the need to not forget the players who got the snowball running. I still play the original dread lords game (I like the fact that it has less features), even though I also own Dark Avatar. I´ve some concerns regarding TA since I read that many people think that the game is not really ready yet/balanced, is that correct?

Brad, if you have a look at the pro strategy advise on the galciv2wiki it says that it optimal to use fleet configurations to win battles that are in my opinion not very realistic. I believe that it would be most fun (and realistic) to have fleets consisting of different types of ships (large and smaller ones), which complement each other. Perhaps you could have a look at this and at the same time also improve the attack strategies of the ai, i.e. make them attack more like human players would. I hope I haven't asked too much.

Thanks a lot for your effort (although it musn't be too hard to play the game with which it all started and you love yourself)

At the top of my head:- A buy building (and maybe ship) button on the colony list screen, so that you save a click and some mouse movement when you want to buy a building. It adds up when you've got a lot of new colonies you want to buy some of the cheaper buildings for. It's only 1 click less per colony (plus some movement of the mouse) but it adds up fast. I was playing Master of Orion 2 the other day and noticed that the buy button you have on the colony list there would be awesome to have in GC2.

Not only does it save you a click per planet, but currently you can't see the difference between a planet you've already hurried the production on that turn and one you haven't, which means that as you progress down the list you tend to forget how far you'd gotten and you click around to find the next planet you can rush production on. A button like in MoO 2 would solve that issue as well (just grey it out or something if you can't rush production that turn).

Yes, this is a very good idea. Let me add that after such a purchase of a planetary improvement the colony list automatically is set upwards again - and if one has more than 30 colonies then you'll have to scroll downward again, rendering the Colony List screen unusable for all abundant maps. After a purchase it should *stay* where it is.

I am actually for everything that supports automation and lesser clicks, esp. in bigger galaxies:

There should be a checkbox for toggling *focus* empire-wide on and off, maybe on the top of the Colony List screen.

"auto-upgrade" and "terraform" (when techs become available) should be standardly un-checked. No serious player uses them anyway. Or you could make a disable checkbox for these two empire-wide.

The "auto-upgrade" of Starbases is really nice, but a bit unpractical because you constantly have to monitor the current state of your bases. Best would be, if we could check/uncheck those types of modules we'd like to have on them, that is, I want planetary production support on Economy SBs (and maybe Trade support) but no weapons, so I should be able to check the former only. If a constructor would arrive and no further module-type is checked then he should stop right there. Another thing is that one can't see what future upgrades/modules are, double-clicking says you like "installed modules 6/15" but it doesn' tell you if there are still those that I want or not.

Glitch: If one upgrades an ship/hull - and checks the "upgrade all types of these ships" above then the starport build queue also updates to this. Example, if I build "tiny hulls" civ-wide, and upgrade them all to "tiny constructors" (using the above) then the starports will suddenly build "tiny constructors". That shouldn't be so. Ship-build queue should only change if I manually change it in the starport, or use the governors.

Glitch: The autosave-feature doesn't save the alignment choice (if Xeno-Ethics was researched during this turn.) On an re-loaded autosave the Xeno-Ethics will then show-up researched, but no bonuses are given, and the tech(s) after "Good & Evil" is not there. The autosave feature also "forgets" if another governmental form has been chosen on this very turn.

Reduce engine-costs. Seriously. The AI wants that, too, believe me. In DL the AI's will make use of engines and build very fast Troop Transports that can take out your unguarded planets in one turn from out the fog-of-war. In DA/TA the AI only has very slow ships, which can be easily outmanouvered. Too easily. Dread Lord Dreadnaughts with only 5 movepoints....(!)

How about adding Farm Construction to the Thalan tech tree? The poor bastards are starving.

What about giving the Yor "Total Majesty"? In all collective swarms there is a charming queen present.

btw, speaking of Yor, they still have a minor bug concerning Military SB's - they can't add 'Laser Equalizer' to them because the corresponding Beam Weapon Tech is missing. Thanks to Robert Hentschke for this finding.

This one seems so obvious that maybe its already in one of the expansions: How about a minimap on the Planet Governor screen so I get an idea of the planet's location? You've got some nice real estate in that big box that typically holds all of the planet buildings; a minimap toggulator button would work nice there. Along those same lines, a toggle button to show the SOI borders on the minimap would be useful. I'm a software engineer at my firm so I realize the smallest upgrade could actually turn out to be the biggest headache. Btw, great game!

Yes, this is a very good idea. Let me add that after such a purchase of a planetary improvement the colony list automatically is set upwards again - and if one has more than 30 colonies then you'll have to scroll downward again, rendering the Colony List screen unusable for all abundant maps. After a purchase it should *stay* where it is.

@ maiden666

That is it! Scroll down, stay no, don't go back up to the top. It should be done on ships buildiers too.

In the Ship Designer screen, increase the size of the little dials to change the orientation of parts, and put a number entry field so I can specify an orientation in degrees. I'm OCD about lining things up, but I'm too clumsy to do anything less than 15 degree increments.

I haven't played GalCiv 2 for a while (other games like Sins or Elemental Beta have kept me busy). That said, I do remember that starbases were a pain for me to defend. I'll list a few suggestions to solve this problem below. If you could get 1 of them to work, I would be quite happy.

----

1. Fortify Command: Starbase defenses suck. They take too many constructors to build up, and when maxed out, they can't compete with a maxed out ship (Huge hull with Doom Rays for instance). The only real option in game (right now) is to use ships to defend a starbase (by moving them to occupy the same parsec as the starbase) and use a "Guard" command to make them stay put. Unfortunaly, commands like "Guard" don't work well because the ship (or fleet) will "wake up" when hostiles are nearby. This runs the risk of the defending fleet to be moved away from position at the worst possible moment (when hostiles are nearby) because of an accidental order.

The fortify command I'm proposing is a command that causes a ship (or a fleet) to stay put until you go out of your way to cancel that order. They never will not wake up... except when you give them a new order.

2. Allow starbases to join fleets: A starbase can join fleets. Regardless of the threat rating of all ships involved in the fleet, the starbase is always be attacked last (after all other ships have been destroyed).

If you feel up to the extra work, you could give starbases new Atlas modules that can be built using constructors.

1) Hardpoints; have a look at all of them, a bunch are inverted or off by a few degrees (mostly applies to hulls but some extra's too) Some extras have hardpoints that hang below them, completely unattached to the part itself.

2) The 'box' hulls have the hardpoints pointing forward. I would like to see this changed to all hardpoints pointing away (at a 90 degree angle from the face it is on) from the hull. The hardpoint inside the 'box' hulls can be kept pointing forward. I would like it even better if this was applied to all hulls and extras.

2) Hardpoints: When it comes to extras I would like to be able to determine by which hardpoint to drag the part. Would allow for better construction methods.

3) When starting a new game, I'd like to be able to set 'anomalies', 'number of asteroids' and 'number of extreme planets' to 'none'.

4) A bigger map size or a significant decrease in ship ranges. The immense map size just doesn't feel immense anymore after a short while. If opting for a bigger map size I'd like to see 2x width and 2x height of the immense map. If opting to decrease ranges, then one quarter of what is now the going rate should suffice.

5) The 'Battle of the Gods' scenario needs to be adjusted. It does not give you all tech from the start (in twilight of the arnor anyway).

6) If you don't start with medium hulls, the survey module and some of the early propulsion technologies researched, how can you start with a miner, colony ship and survey vessel? You should receive one of each when the appropriate technologies have been researched under the vague reason of 'prototypes to test out before you go out and explore the galaxy.'

7) Would like to see colonizing only possible after researching a 'basic colonizing' technology (which would lead to planetary improvements and advanced colonizing). I find it unrealistic that you're able to colonize entire planets without having to do research first.

8) Make it more clear whether a bonus gained from trade goods, anomalies or events is planetary or galactic. Especially the moral bonusses from trade goods seem unclear on this.

9) Why do events/mega events always happen on my initial planet? Why don't they ever happen on another colonized world? Like the riotting after the team loses a game, or the animals in the sewers, etc.

10) The minimap; ownership; how come I can see where the other races are without having ever met them? Highly unrealistic.

11) How can I be getting messages about races (race x build building y) when I've never met them? Please, don't inform me about races I haven't met before and if they've build trade goods or a galactic achievement, don't inform me either untill I've spied on them (put it in the report about them when I have a high enough level of espionage on them).

12) When using a terrorstar to blow up a system should not the terror star also be destroyed or at the very least severely damaged? After all, the blast of the exploding star does annihilate all planets!

13) Spelling/grammar mistakes should be fixed as much as possible.

14) Planetary Governers; haven't used these in a long time because they were bad at what they did so I could be completely off now since there have been a bunch of updates. I usually have a basic building pattern that I perform on every colonized planet I own;1x factory2x morale2x financial1x recruitment center1x farm1x fertility clinic1x influence1x counter spy1x food distribution center

I usually play with the Terran techtree and have my race's abilities set to increase planet quality by 20% (magical) and don't use soil enhancement, habitat improvement and terraforming (I opt for the orbital terraformer). For this to work I only colonize planets that have a quality of 9 or above.

What I want to be able to do is tell the governer to first check for bonus tiles;If there's a manufacturing bonus tile I want the factory built upon that.If there are multiple manufacturing bonus tiles, the rest should be kept clear for future factories (which I will manually add)

If there's a morale bonus tile only one morale building has to be build (on that tile offcourse).If there are multiple morale bonus tiles, only one should be used and the rest kept clear.

If there's a food bonus tile it should be ignored and under absolutely NO circumstances should the governer build a farm on it.

If there's an influence bonus tile, the influence building should be build upon it.If there are multiple influence bonus tiles, one should be used and the rest should be kept clear.

Some of the buildings in my list are not neccessary and should there be so many bonus tiles that there isn't enough space for some buildings, then I should be able to tell the governer which buildings do not have to be built by it (I will build them on bonus tiles or terraformed tiles later on).

Lastly; if the planet has a research bonus tile or multiple, the governer should build research buildings upon them.

1) Hardpoints; have a look at all of them, a bunch are inverted or off by a few degrees (mostly applies to hulls but some extra's too) Some extras have hardpoints that hang below them, completely unattached to the part itself.

2) The 'box' hulls have the hardpoints pointing forward. I would like to see this changed to all hardpoints pointing away (at a 90 degree angle from the face it is on) from the hull. The hardpoint inside the 'box' hulls can be kept pointing forward. I would like it even better if this was applied to all hulls and extras.

2) Hardpoints: When it comes to extras I would like to be able to determine by which hardpoint to drag the part. Would allow for better construction methods.

3) When starting a new game, I'd like to be able to set 'anomalies', 'number of asteroids' and 'number of extreme planets' to 'none'.

+1

4) A bigger map size or a significant decrease in ship ranges. The immense map size just doesn't feel immense anymore after a short while. If opting for a bigger map size I'd like to see 2x width and 2x height of the immense map. If opting to decrease ranges, then one quarter of what is now the going rate should suffice.

+1, but probably won't happen. Another map size is a large update.

5) The 'Battle of the Gods' scenario needs to be adjusted. It does not give you all tech from the start (in twilight of the arnor anyway).

+1

6) If you don't start with medium hulls, the survey module and some of the early propulsion technologies researched, how can you start with a miner, colony ship and survey vessel? You should receive one of each when the appropriate technologies have been researched under the vague reason of 'prototypes to test out before you go out and explore the galaxy.'

You can choose a scenario where you don't have any starting ships. Considering how long it's been like this, is it really a big deal NOW?

7) Would like to see colonizing only possible after researching a 'basic colonizing' technology (which would lead to planetary improvements and advanced colonizing). I find it unrealistic that you're able to colonize entire planets without having to do research first.

In theory, I can see where you're coming from, but TA already added more things you have to research before you research the things that you need. If you like, you can assume that there is certain research that every civ has already done. After all, the backstory for most of them seems to suggest that they have.

8) Make it more clear whether a bonus gained from trade goods, anomalies or events is planetary or galactic. Especially the moral bonusses from trade goods seem unclear on this.

9) Why do events/mega events always happen on my initial planet? Why don't they ever happen on another colonized world? Like the riotting after the team loses a game, or the animals in the sewers, etc.

I've had them happen on my secondary as well-but I don't remember how long ago that was, or what version. It makes a certain degree of sense that something of that magnitude would happen on your homeworld, though.

10) The minimap; ownership; how come I can see where the other races are without having ever met them? Highly unrealistic.

I'll assume this has something to do with you detecting radio waves in/on/around their planets (perhaps you have superluminal detection capabilities). In any case, you have the option in game setup to turn blind exploration on, so you don't see ownership on the minimap until you meet them. Personally, I like having the option of playing both ways.

11) How can I be getting messages about races (race x build building y) when I've never met them? Please, don't inform me about races I haven't met before and if they've build trade goods or a galactic achievement, don't inform me either untill I've spied on them (put it in the report about them when I have a high enough level of espionage on them).

Would be nice.

12) When using a terrorstar to blow up a system should not the terror star also be destroyed or at the very least severely damaged? After all, the blast of the exploding star does annihilate all planets!

I suggested this probably a dozen times. It seems people feel the terror stars aren't powerful enough, and don't want another "nerf". But especially considering that it's quite frequently more efficient, timewise, to build a new TS than move one to the next target, I really don't believe it would make as big of a difference as they claim.

13) Spelling/grammar mistakes should be fixed as much as possible.

+1

14) Planetary Governers; haven't used these in a long time because they were bad at what they did so I could be completely off now since there have been a bunch of updates. I usually have a basic building pattern that I perform on every colonized planet I own;1x factory2x morale2x financial1x recruitment center1x farm1x fertility clinic1x influence1x counter spy1x food distribution center

I usually play with the Terran techtree and have my race's abilities set to increase planet quality by 20% (magical) and don't use soil enhancement, habitat improvement and terraforming (I opt for the orbital terraformer). For this to work I only colonize planets that have a quality of 9 or above.

What I want to be able to do is tell the governer to first check for bonus tiles;If there's a manufacturing bonus tile I want the factory built upon that.If there are multiple manufacturing bonus tiles, the rest should be kept clear for future factories (which I will manually add)

If there's a morale bonus tile only one morale building has to be build (on that tile offcourse).If there are multiple morale bonus tiles, only one should be used and the rest kept clear.

If there's a food bonus tile it should be ignored and under absolutely NO circumstances should the governer build a farm on it.

If there's an influence bonus tile, the influence building should be build upon it.If there are multiple influence bonus tiles, one should be used and the rest should be kept clear.

Some of the buildings in my list are not neccessary and should there be so many bonus tiles that there isn't enough space for some buildings, then I should be able to tell the governer which buildings do not have to be built by it (I will build them on bonus tiles or terraformed tiles later on).

Lastly; if the planet has a research bonus tile or multiple, the governer should build research buildings upon them.

I'm not trying to criticize, but I felt that some of your requests deserved commenting on. Hopefully the quoting format is tolerable as well.